The Lydian Baker

10

When I got to the Aphrodisian Gate there was still no sign of Lysias with the carriage. Bugger. The end to a perfect day. I parked myself outside a handy cookshop with a good view of the gate and ordered up a jug of Chian. After walking across what felt like half of rural Attica I could've murdered a plate of bean stew to go with it, but I took one look at the waiter leaning against the door jamb and digging the wax from his ears with the blunt end of a snail-spoon and decided to forego the pleasure. Pissed off and starving I might be, but I wasn't that desperate.

Besides, I think best on an empty stomach and a full wine jug. Food's a distraction.

So. What had we got here? What had happened was clear enough: Eutyches, whoever he was, had suckered Argaius into a bogus meeting on Mounychia, bundled him up, taken him somewhere quiet and persuaded him with the help of Prince Charming and a crowbar to reveal the whereabouts of the Baker. Having got the information he wanted he'd slit the guy's throat, dumped him at the Founders' and raided the honey-pot, leaving me sitting on my hands and looking like ten different kinds of fool just when I'd been congratulating myself on tracking down Argaius's partner…

Yeah. Smart work, right? The question was, what was I going to do now? I couldn't give up; no way. Sure, I'd lost the statue, but I still had a lead or two, and now I had a personal axe to grind. No one likes to be made a mug of, and just the thought of the sneer on Prince Charming's face had me reaching for the razor. When I did find Eutyches — and find him I would — the guy was catfood.

Okay. So let's start from the other end and think with my brain instead of my backside this time. Just what did I know about Eutyches? Sure, the name was common enough to fit a good slice of the City population, but I could narrow the field a lot more because my Eutyches would have to satisfy certain criteria. First of all, he needed to be, if not rich, at least pretty well-heeled: to hook Argaius and establish his street cred he'd've needed to put up a show of wealth at least, and hired help like Prince Charming, plus the tame muscle he'd need to shift the Baker, wouldn't come cheap. Slaves, plural, cost money, even if they are just bullion-shifters. And freemen who had to be squared would rate even higher.

Yeah. So. Let's call the guy 'comfortably off' at worst. From a cultured background, what's more: if Perilla was right, and his choice of Ptolemy's statue as the dumping place for Argaius's corpse was deliberate, then the guy was a prime culture-vulture, someone who was up to indulging himself with chichi literary puns that were way beyond the average punter. Second, unless his only concern was the Baker's meltdown value — which was a possibility, but I doubted it somehow — he had at least an educated layman's interest in art. Scratch that: given he was prepared to go to any lengths to get what he wanted, Eutyches had to be a full-fledged antiquities nut in the same league as Priscus, only without Priscus's scruples.

He had to be capable of murder, too. Second-hand murder, at any rate. That went without saying.

I picked up my wine cup and took a thoughtful swallow. I'd have to remember this place: otocathartic waiters or not, their Chian wasn't bad, especially with nothing to soak it up. I was feeling brighter already.

Fair enough. I'd got myself a profile, and it hung together. A Eutyches who fitted as narrow a description as that shouldn't be all that difficult to trace; in fact, a word to Bathyllus might do it, because even in the short time we'd been here he'd built up a knowledge of the Athenian social register that almost equalled his shit-hot mastery of the Roman one…

Only asking Bathyllus who Eutyches was wouldn't do a blind bit of good because the guy didn't exist; I'd bet a used boil plaster to a double consignment of Setinian on that right now. He couldn't exist, because neither Smaragdus nor, by implication, Argaius knew anything about him, and they should have done. Sure they should: as decent-living, hard-working professional con-men they'd carry a list of possible marks in their heads. A rich antiquities buff like Eutyches would stick out like Priapus in a lettuce bed. Neither of the partners had ever seen the bastard face to face, either, barring, perhaps, Argaius's final — and fatal — interview on Mounychia. That was significant too.

The explanation was simple: if I was right, and the description did fit, then Eutyches wasn't the guy's real name at all.

Okay. Now we were getting somewhere. If 'Eutyches' was an assumed name the field was wide open again. So who did I already know who was comfortably off but not filthy-rich enough to do things honestly; well-read and cultured, with certain show-off tendencies; an art-freak on Priscan lines; who knew that the Baker had come onto the market; and finally who was someone strong-minded enough — potentially, at least, in my opinion — to contemplate murder as a means to an end?

Correct. I took a smug mouthful of the Chian.

One got you ten that Eutyches was my oenophilic pal Melanthus.

The old brain wasn't working too badly after all, and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself: I could fit a name to Eutyches and I'd a jug of wine in front of me that was well on the good side of drinkable. No sign of Lysias yet, but I wasn't complaining: there aren't many pleasures that measure up to sitting in front of a cookshop by a busy street looking at life go by. I watched an argument between a porter and a customer who reckoned the guy had delivered his basket of fish in a poorer condition than they'd started out, and picked up a few choice words to add to my Greek vocabulary. Then there was a real honey of a girl with a figure that even from what I could see of it under her cloak wouldn't've looked out of place on a sculptor's model. And finally, just when Lysias drove up and parked in the carriage rank next to the gate, there was a big, flashy Ethiopian on a mule…

You don't see many Ethiopians even in Athens, let alone out here in the sticks. He wasn't a slave, either, or at least he wasn't dressed like one. And like I say he was big: you could see the muscles straining against the seams of his tunic, which was one of the snazziest I'd seen in a long while: canary yellow with a red stripe up the side and a broad belt studded with gilt nails and scraps of coloured glass that winked in the afternoon sunlight.

The guy wasn't in any hurry, that was for sure. He'd stopped by the horse trough beside the gate and dismounted to water the mule. Now he was looking in my direction, or rather in the direction of the cookshop. I thought for a moment he'd come over, but he seemed to change his mind and just sat down on the edge of the trough and communed with nature while the mule took on water one end and got rid of it the other.

Lysias turned the carriage and gave me a wave. Okay. End of floorshow, time to go home. I left a silver piece on the table and walked over to the rank. The Ethiopian's eyes followed me. It was unnerving, like being ogled by two hardboiled eggs smothered in octopus ink. Yeah, well, maybe a Roman in this part of the Piraeus was as rare a sight to him as an Ethiopian was to me. I gave him a nod as I passed but he didn't respond.

'Okay, Lysias,' I said, climbing aboard the carriage. 'Take it away.'

We were halfway to the Hamaxitos when the hairs at the nape of my neck started to crawl. That doesn't happen often, but when it does I listen. On a sudden hunch, I opened the flap at the back of the carriage and looked out. Sure enough, the Ethiopian was behind us. And that was strange, if you like, because when I'd first seen him the guy had been headed the other way, out of town towards Echelidae…

Okay, it might be coincidence; certainly it wasn't worth making a fuss over. Maybe he'd suddenly remembered he'd left the stew pot on at home or had a premonition he'd be mugged by a visually-challenged bear with a down on loud tunics; or maybe he'd just decided that Athens couldn't get along without him after all. Whatever his reasons, they were his own business, and probably as innocent as a virgin's dreams.

Still, it didn't explain the twitching of my neck-hairs. And some of those virgins' dreams can be pretty hot stuff. I'd be willing to lay a substantial bet that the flashy bastard was a tail.

The question was, whose was he, and why?

I closed the flap and settled down to think.